


Choosing a different path

by NoRegrets30



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoRegrets30/pseuds/NoRegrets30
Summary: Barry Heterodyne was a tired man, Barry Heterodyne didn’t know who to trust, Barry Heterodyne knew he had to choose, Barry Heterodyne made his choice
Comments: 15
Kudos: 69





	Choosing a different path

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever made and frankly I don't know what this is meant to be or even if this will go anywhere, but feedback is appreciated, so have at it

It had been a difficult few years for Barry Heterodyne, between losing his brother in their quest to stop Bill’s ‘wife’, fighting her forces, and lately running around Europa in an attempt to protect his five year old niece, Barry had started to loss himself to the madness of his own spark, subsuming his mind in his work, to try finding peace any way he could think of, but even that couldn’t prepare him for what would happen next.

Music...

no...

HUMMING

Barry jumped in his chair, looking around for the musical notes coming from outside his tent, “That can’t be” he whispered in abject fear at the only possible explanation.

Standing up too fast Barry almost felt over, looking down he realized his legs where somewhat numb, probably from sitting down and working an absurd amount of time, even for a Spark, sighing to himself The Heterodyne noted down his current state for later, there is a more pressing matter to attend to at the moment.

Stepping out of his tent, the sun hit Barry like a death ray malfunctioning in front of his face, Barry stops for a second to regain his bearings, since last he looked it was still the middle of the night, but then again this kind of thing had become more and more common in the last few years.

Now somewhat accustomed to the light of a new morn-, the light of a new midday, Barry Heterodyne looked around for the atonal melody that anyone in Mechanicsburg would immediately recognize, and probably also comply to any and all request made by the one making said melody.

Finding the source of the melody was simple enough since it was the only other living being in the nearest 126 square mile radius, and this confirmed Barry’s fears, inadvertently making his already bad situation even worse, was a young child, no more than five years old, with her back turned to him, muttering to herself about what adjustments could be made to something in her tiny hands and from what could be made out said adjustments would not be done by the sanest of minds, but that is to be expected.

This can’t be good, for several reasons, most important of which is the fact that it was way too early for this to be possible, she can’t be breaking thought this young, it was bad enough when Barry and his brother broke through at a relatively young age, but they had been in Mechanicsburg at the time, a place made for Heterodyne sparks, this is a wasteland, at best the child would blow up something, be branded a witch or some other such nonsense, then be killed for it, and at worse she would, make something worthy of the Heterodyne name, that she can’t control, either one would be horrible and so Barry Heterodyne was scared for his niece.

Trying his best to calm himself down even if just a bit he got closer to his niece and immediately realized something horrifying, the thing she was modifying was a tiny dead construct in front of her, one that seems to have been dissected for parts while said parts were strewn about in front of the girl, upon further inspection the parts seem to have been divided into groups, ranging from their distinct shapes and sizes to color and there was also a group for those parts that were not yet clean of the viscera and blood from the construct, this seems to be a very simplified version of his own part cataloging method.

It seems his niece has been watching him work from a distance for a while now, and Barry himself didn’t realize a thing until he saw her using a simplified version of his already dumb down cataloging method.

Yet there seemed to be a small flair for the dramatic as the tiny girls hands where almost entirely inside the even tinier corpse.

Finally, the tiny girl seemed to notice the grown man three times her size looming behind her shoulder, turning around, her hands still covered in blood and viscera, she tried to hide her “experiment” from the only person she truly knew. “Hi Uncle Barry” she said looking sheepish “why are you out of your lab?”. 

Barry looked at her hands for a second, and then spoke calmly, “Where did you get that” he pointed towards the dead construct his niece had been failing to hide for the last few seconds.  
“Some flying thing dropped it about two hours ago” said the tiny girl looking anywhere but at her uncle’s face “It didn’t seem notice, so I took it” she moved her arms finally letting Barry see the entire construct, or what was left of it, “It looked broken but I had seem things like it in your workshop, so I had the idea to make a gift for you”.

The construct seems to have been an attempt to create tiny agents who could infiltrate enemy fortresses undetected, or maybe its creator lost something behind a closet and just continued from there, as it was made from several rat parts, yet it had about ten limbs, four presumably for running and maneuvering, while the other six where for picking up any item its creator may have needed, its mouth was filled with multiple tongue like limb yet their tips where closer to syringes than anything else, presumably for administering a number of poisons, among other things, and from the looks of things there had once been a reproductive system for this tiny construct. ‘Those are the ones that can cause the most problems’ thought Barry being reminded about the origin of mimmoths, annoying little things.  
Looking back to his niece, Barry responded to her, “Those sounds you where making, where did you learn them”, his niece looked ecstatic when mentioning that she had heard them from him but could never make them out until today, and how it had all been so simple once she could really think about it, as she put it:

“I can use the Music whenever I need to concentrate”.

“Oh no” Barry mutters in a tone too low for his niece to hear, he then looks his niece in the eyes and with a somewhat forced smile, that his niece doesn’t notice, says “That very good, keep up practicing, but I will need you to try to stop for now” while he was somewhat calm on the outside, inside he was panicking, if this didn’t work then she was too far into the breakthrough for anything to count.  
For a second his niece looked like she might actually do what her uncle asked for her to do, but then she stopped and look uncle Barry in the face saying: “I can’t leave the experiment incomplete, can I uncle Barry”, it was clear now just how deep she was in the madness of her newly Broken thought spark. As the child who had obey every order her uncle had ever given her until today returned to the corpse and shoved her hands into it with an enthusiasm worthy of any Spark.

It was at this moment that Barry started to lose his composure, he walked up to her, around the corpse, and as he was about to forcefully get her away for her ‘project’, he stopped in his tracks, she was smiling, no, she was grinning, it was the kind of grin he remembered from when he was a young child living in castle Heterodyne, he remembered this grin in every painting of his family, he remembered it in his own father face almost daily, and he remembered it in his own brothers face.

This stopped him in his tracks as memories of the times where both he and his brother fought side by side with friends and allies to make Europa a better place for everyone, to undo the evils of their family legacy, to give the children of tomorrow a world where they don’t have to be afraid for their lives every time they wake up another day.

He also remembers how that dream was drowned in a sea of chaos and war, when what was supposed to be the happiest day of his brothers life was missing their most beloved friend, when the one place that was supposed to be safe for their family was damaged beyond recognition, when the person his brother had MARRIED had betrayed them all and killed HER OWN CHILD just to have more power.  
Barry Heterodyne remembered his return to Europa, how their war had left it a destroyed wasteland where no one could be saved anymore, how the first thing he saw was a banner with an all too familiar crest upon it, how he has thought about talking to their long lost friend, and how his hopes had been dashed as he realized that THIS had been her plan all along, THIS had been THEIR plan all along, and the Heterodynes felt for it like FOOLS.

…

But Barry Heterodyne had no more tears to cry

…

NO!!!!!

Barry Heterodyne had a task, a task given to him in his brother’s final words until they meet again, protecting his niece, by any means necessary.  
Now looking at the manic grin in said nieces face, Barry couldn’t help but feel he was about to fail, as the grin that wouldn’t look out of place on a Jaeger’s face kept getting bigger and stretching the face of his tiny niece, kept making her look more and more like a Heterodyne, Barry made his choice.  
He had originally thought about using a sort of Heterodyne dampening Locket, which would respond to the frequency emitted by their unique Heterodyning, how that correlated to the use of their Spark and how a Sparks brain flairs when they use their gift, to send a small jolt of pain to the thought the brain, thus stopping her from making anything bigger than a clock, but thinking back on this solution it now seemed so small in scale and it was also a solution made as short term way of stopping his niece from breaking through completely, but now he was too late for that.

Thinking back to his previous musings about his own and his brothers Breakthroughs, he remembered why it was a lot more common for him and the rest of his family to breakthrough, YES, that was it, the reason why they have some of the highest number of breakthroughs in the history of Europa, the Heterodynes created the PERFECT environment for any spark of their house to utilize their GIFTS without any interruption from a party who would like to STOP THEM and enough PROTECTION that the chances of a breakthrough project killing a Heterodyne spark where slim to none, HE DIDN’T NEED TO PROTECT HIS NIECE ANYMORE IF SHE COULD ALREADY USE THE POWERFUL PROTECTION ALREADY AFFORDED TO HER BY HER LEGACY ALONE, but one problem remains, the castle is still in ruins.

Wait

WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM?

YES, HE COULD USE THIS AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR HIS YOUNG NIECE, THIS COULD BE HIS FIRST AND FINAL LESSON, TO HER IN THE ART OF THE SPARK,BEFORE HE HAS TO RETURN TO HIS BROTHER SIDE IN THEIR FINAL BATTLE AGAINST THE MONSTERS THEY HAVE HAD TO CONTEND AGAINST THEIR ENTIRE LIVES, BUT FIRST HIS NIECE.

“AGATHA” the child in question looked up from the half-completed project, at her uncle’s manic face, set on a grin bigger than her own just a few moments prior.

“yes uncle” responded the young child, somewhat snapped out of her mad reverie by her uncles own, for the time being, even greater madness.

“HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET SOME OF YOUR FATHERS OLD… ACQUAINTANCES” he said as he motioned for Agatha to stand up from her spot, something she did without hesitation and with a grin reminiscent of the Jaegers own, patented grins.

“I would love too” responded the small child, her hands still covered in blood.

And so, the Heterodyne family finally returned to Mechanicsburg.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I just made


End file.
